In some towns the selectmen were chosen by "pricking." A number of names were written upon a sheet of paper. This was passed around and each man pricked a hole against the names of his choice. The one having the most pin holes was chosen first selectman, the next highest the second, and the next the third.
When a couple concluded to marry they made known their intention to the town clerk, who posted a notice of their intended marriage in the meetinghouse. This was called "being published." By law this notice must be published three Sabbaths before the ceremony was performed, so that any one who knew of any reason why such marriage should not take place might appear and make objection. In addition to the posting, the town clerk would rise in the meeting and read the intention to marry.
Each landowner not only maintained his own fences around cultivated fields, but also gave of his labor in building long ranges of fencing about the common pasture lands in proportion to his interest in the land. A law was enacted as early as 1633 requiring the fencing of corn fields.
The earliest fences were usually made of five rails and must be up by early in April when the cattle and hogs were turned out to roam at large. The New England farmer, clearing his land for cultivation, soon devised another form of fence where stones were plentiful and by piling up these stones into walls divided off his fields and gave them substantial protection. The well-built stone wall must have a foundation of small stones laid in a trench to prevent its being thrown by the frost and when carefully built it would last for generations. Meanwhile the adjoining field had been cleared of stones and made useful for cultivation. Hedge fences were also in frequent use as in parts of England whence the settlers had emigrated.
The roads outside the villages were seldom fenced. In fact, the early roads were little more than ill-defined paths winding their way across pastures and cultivated fields and whenever a dividing farm was reached, there would be a gate or bars to be opened and closed by the traveler.
CHAPTER VIII
Manners and Customs
When the first considerable emigration ceased about the year 1640, of the 25,000 settlers then living in the Colony, probably ninety-five per cent were small farmers or workmen engaged in the manual trades, together with many indentured servants who had come over under the terms of a contract whereby they were bonded to serve their masters for a term of years – usually five or seven. The remaining five per cent of the population was composed of those governing the colony – the stockholders in the Company, so to speak; ministers enough to supply the spiritual needs of each town and settlement, however small; a few of social position and comparative wealth; one lawyer; and a sprinkling of shopkeepers and small merchants living in the seaport towns. Here and there a physician or chirurgeon might be found, but the physical welfare of the smaller towns was usually cared for by some ancient housewife with a knowledge of herbs and simples. Sometimes it was the minister who practiced two professions and cared for the bodies as well as the souls of his congregation.
The founders of the colony in the Massachusetts Bay, and most of those who immediately followed them, were men who did not conform to the ritual and government of the Established Church in England. They were followers of John Calvin whose Geneva Bible was widely read in England and whose teachings had profoundly influenced English thought and manners. Calvin taught a great simplicity of life and a personal application of the teachings found in the Bible. In the Commonwealth that he set up in Geneva, the daily life and actions of its citizens were as closely guarded as if in a nursery for children. All frivolous amusements were forbidden; a curfew was established; and all were constrained to save souls and to labor for material development. There was a minute supervision of dress and personal conduct, and a literal construction of Bible mandates was carried so far that children were actually put to death for striking their parents.
Calvin's theology was based on the belief that all men were born sinners and since Adam's fall, by the will of God, predestined from birth to hell and everlasting torment, unless, happily, one of the elect and so foreordained to be saved. In this belief the Puritans found life endurable because they considered themselves of the elect; and in cases of doubt, the individual found comfortable assurance in the belief that although certain of his neighbors were going to hell he was one of the elect. It naturally followed that the imagination of the Puritans was concentrated on questions of religion.
The teachings of Calvin spread rapidly in England and among his followers there came about an austerity of religious life and a great simplicity in dress and manners.
It is true that most of the settlers of Massachusetts were poor in purse and with many of them mere existence was a struggle for a long time. But the growth of wealth in the Colony, although it brought with it more luxury in living and better dwellings, did not add much to the refinement of the people. It was the influence and example of the royal governors and a more frequent commercial intercourse with England and the Continental peoples that brought about a desire for a richer dress and an introduction of some of the refinements of life. This by no means met the approval of the Puritan ministers who frequently inveighed against "Professors of Religion who fashion themselves according to the World." The Rev. Cotton Mather, the leading minister in Boston and the industrious author of over four hundred published sermons and similar works, again and again exhorted against stage plays and infamous games of cards and dice. "It is a matter of Lamentation that even such things as these should be heard of in New England," he exclaimed. "And others spend their time in reading vain Romances," he continued. "It is meer loss of time."
With such a background and burdened with such a far-reaching antagonism toward the finer things of life, that help to lighten the burden of existence and beautify the way, it is small wonder that the esthetics found little fertile soil in New England; and much of this prejudice and state of mind lingered among the old families in the more remote and orthodox communities, until recent times.
The New England Puritans only allowed themselves one full holiday in the course of the year and that was Thanksgiving Day, a time for feasting. To be sure, there was Fast Day, in the spring, which gave freedom from work; but that was a day for a sermon at the meetinghouse, for long faces and a supposed bit of self denial – somewhere. The celebration of Christmas was not observed by the true New England Puritan until the middle of the nineteenth century.
A number of sermons preached by Rev. Samuel Moodey, an eccentric minister at York, Maine, for nearly half a century, were printed and among them: "The Doleful State of the Damned, especially such as go to hell from under the Gospel." This sermon was followed by its antidote, entitled: "The Gospel Way of Escaping the Doleful State of the Damned." Another of his sermons was upon "Judas the Traitor, Hung up in Chains." Parson Moodey's son, Joseph, followed him in the pulpit at York. He was known as "Handkerchief Moodey," as he fell into a melancholy; thought he had sinned greatly; and after a time wore a handkerchief over his face whenever he appeared in public. In the pulpit he would turn his back to the congregation and read the sermon, but whenever he faced his people it would be with handkerchief-covered features. Think what must have been the influence of two such men on the life and opinions of a town covering a period of two generations!
During the late seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth, the books usually found in the average New England family were the Bible, the Psalm Book, an almanac, the New England Primer, a sermon or two and perhaps a copy of Michael Wigglesworth's terrific poem – "The Day of Doom." The latter was first printed in 1662 in an edition of 1800 copies not one of which has survived. Every copy was read and re-read until nothing remained but fragments of leaves. Seven editions of this poem were printed between 1662 and 1715 and few copies of any edition now exist. The book expressed the quintesscence of Calvinism. Here is stanza 205, expressing the terror of those doomed to hell:
"They wring their hands, their caitiff-hands,
and gnash their teeth for terrour:
They cry, they roar, for anguish sore
and gnaw their tongues for horrour.
But get away without delay,
Christ pities not your cry:
Depart to Hell, there may you yell,
and roar Eternally."
Pastor Higginson of Salem wrote enthusiastically of the natural abundance of the grass that "groweth verie wildly with a great stalke" as high as a man's face and as for Indian corn – the planting of thirteen gallons of seed had produced an increase of fifty-two hogsheads or three hundred and fifty bushels, London measure, to be sold or trusted to the Indians in exchange for beaver worth above £300. Who would not share the hardships and dangers of the frontier colony for opportunity of such rich gain?
But the housewives in the far-away English homes were more interested in the growth of the vegetable gardens in the virgin soil, and of these he wrote: "Our turnips, parsnips and carrots are here both bigger and sweeter than is ordinary to be found in England. Here are stores of pumpions, cucumbers, and other things of that nature I know not. Plentie of strawberries in their time, and pennyroyall, winter saverie, carvell and water-cresses, also leeks and onions are ordinary." Great lobsters abounded weighing from sixteen to twenty-five pounds and much store of bass, herring, sturgeon, haddock, eels, and oysters. In the forests were several kinds of deer; also partridges, turkeys, and great flocks of pigeons, with wild geese, ducks, and other sea fowl in such abundance "that a great part of the Planters have eaten nothing but roast-meate of divers Fowles which they have killed."
These were some of the attractive natural features of the new colony in the Massachusetts Bay, as recounted by the Salem minister. Of the hardships he makes small mention, for his aim was to induce emigration. There was much sickness, however, and many deaths. Higginson himself lived only a year after reaching Salem. The breaking up of virgin soil always brings on malaria and fever. Dudley wrote "that there is not an house where there is not one dead, and in some houses many. The naturall causes seem to bee in the want of warm lodgings, and good dyet to which Englishmen are habittuated, at home; and in the suddain increase of heate which they endure that are landed here in somer … those of Plymouth who landed in winter dyed of the Scirvy, as did our poorer sort whose howses and bedding kept them not sufficiently warm, nor their dyet sufficient in heart." Thomas Dudley wrote this in March, 1631. He explained that he was writing upon his knee by the fireside in the living-room, having as yet no table nor other room in which to write during the sharp winter. In this room his family must resort "though they break good manners, and make mee many times forget what I would say, and say what I would not."
But these hardships and inconveniences of living which the New England colonists met and overcame differ but little from those experienced in every new settlement. They have been paralleled again and again wherever Englishmen or Americans have wandered. In a few years after the coming of the ships much of the rawness and discomfort must have disappeared, certainly in the early settlements, and comparative comfort must have existed in most homes. If we could now lift the roof of the average seventeenth-century house in New England it is certain that we should find disclosed not only comfortable conditions of living but in many instances a degree of luxury with fine furnishings that is appreciated by few at the present time.
Of the early days following the settlement Roger Clap, who lived at Dorchester, afterwards wrote as follows:
"It was not accounted a strange thing in those days to drink water, and to eat Samp or Homine without Butter or Milk. Indeed it would have been a strang thing to see a piece of Roast Beef, Mutton or Veal; though it was not long before there was Roast Goat. After the first Winter, we were very Healthy: though some of us had no great Store of Corn. The Indians did sometimes bring Corn, and Trade with us for Clothing and Knives; and once I had a Peck of Corn, or there abouts, for a little Puppy-Dog. Frostfish, Muscles and Clams were a Relief to Many."
When Governor Winthrop landed at Salem in June, 1630, he supped on a good venison pasty and good beer, while most of those who came with him went ashore on Cape Anne side (now Beverly) and gathered strawberries. That was a fine beginning, but when winter set in many of them were "forced to cut their bread thin for a long season" and then it was that they fully realized that "the Ditch betweene England and their now place of abode was so wide… Those that were sent over servants, having itching desires for novelties, found a reddier way to make an end of their Master's provision, then they could finde means to get more; They that came over their own men had but little left to feed on, and most began to repent when their strong Beere and full cups ran as small as water in a large Land… They made shift [however] to rub out the Winter's cold by the Fireside, having fuell enough growing at their very doores, turning down many a drop from the Bottell, and burning Tobacco with all the ease they could."38
Lacking bread they lived on fish, mussels and clams. The rivers supplied bass, shad, alewives, frost fish and smelts in their season, also salmon, and corn meal could be bartered for with the Indians and shortly raised from seed.
"Let no man make a jest at Pumpkins, for with this fruit the Lord was pleased to feed his people to their good content, till Corne and Cattell were increased," wrote Johnson. Later (by 1650) the goodwives served "apples, pears and quince tarts instead of their former Pumpkin Pies," and by that time wheat bread was no dainty.
Society in the Massachusetts Bay in the seventeenth century was divided into several groups. First came the merchant class which also included the ministers and those possessed of wealth. Edward Randolph reported to the Lords of Trade in 1676, that in Massachusetts there were about thirty merchants worth from £10,000. to £20,000. "Most have considerable estates and a very great trade." Next came the freemen and the skilled mechanics. This class furnished the town officials and constituted the backbone of the colony. Then came the unskilled laborer and a step lower was the indentured servant. The merchant lived well and wore fine clothing forbidden to his more humble neighbors. The status of the servant may well be shown by the deposition presented in Court at Salem in 1657 by an apprentice to a stone-mason in the town of Newbury, Massachusetts, who testified that it was a long while before "he could eate his master's food, viz. meate and milk, or drink beer, saying that he did not know that it was good, because he was not used to eat such victualls, but to eate bread and water porridge and to drink water."39
It has been stated frequently that in the olden times in New England every one was obliged to go to church. The size of the meetinghouses, the isolated locations of many of the houses, the necessary care of the numerous young children, and the interesting side-lights on the manners of the time which may be found in the court papers, all go to show that the statement must not be taken literally. Absence from meeting, breaking the Sabbath, carrying a burden on the Lord's Day, condemning the church, condemning the ministry, scandalous falling out on the Lord's Day, slandering the church, and other misdemeanors of a similar character were frequent.
Drunkenness was very common in the old days. "We observed it a common fault in our young people that they gave themselves to drink hot waters immoderately," wrote Edward Johnson. Every family kept on hand a supply of liquor and wine, and cider was considered a necessity of daily living in the country, where it was served with each meal and also carried into the fields by the workers. It was stored in barrels in the cellar and the task of drawing the cider and putting on the table usually fell to the younger members of the family. A man would often provide in his will for the comfort of his loving wife by setting aside for occupancy during her life, one half of his house, with a carefully specified number of bushels of rye, potatoes, turnips and other vegetables; the use of a horse with which to ride to meeting or elsewhere; and lastly, the direction that annually she be provided with a certain number of barrels of cider – sometimes as many as eight.
Rev. Edward Holyoke, the President of Harvard College, was in the habit of laying in each year thirty or more barrels of cider as he had to provide for much entertaining. Late in the winter he would draw off part of his stock and into each barrel he would pour a bottle of spirit and a month later some of this blend would be bottled for use on special occasions.
What was their conduct not only in their homes but in their relations with their neighbors? Did they live peaceably and work together in building up the settlements? Did they set up in the wilderness domestic relations exactly like those they had abandoned overseas? It was a raw frontier country to which they came and it is apparent that at the outset they felt themselves to be transplanted Englishmen. So far as possible they lived the lives to which they had been accustomed and they engrafted in their new homes the manners and customs of the generations behind them. Most of them fully recognized, however, that they were not to return; that they had cut loose from the old home ties and it was not long before the necessities and limitations of frontier life brought about changed conditions in every direction. Politically, religiously and socially, they were in a different relation than formerly in the English parish life. Many of them, especially those somewhat removed from the immediate supervision of magistrate and minister, before long seem to have shown a tendency to follow the natural bent of the frontiersman toward independent thought and action. Their political leaders made laws restricting daily life and action and their religious leaders laid down rules for belief and conduct, that soon were repellent to many. Civil and clerical records are filled with instances showing an evasion of and even contempt for the laws and rules laid down by the leaders of their own choosing. Some of it doubtless was in the blood of the men who had come in search of a certain individual freedom of action, but much of it may be attributed to frontier conditions and primitive living. There were many indentured servants, and rough fishermen and sailors have always been unruly. Simple houses of but few rooms accommodating large families are not conducive to gentle speech or modesty of manner nor to a strict morality. The craving for landholding and the poorly defined and easily removed bounds naturally led to ill feeling, assault, defamation, and slander.
CHAPTER IX
Sports and Games
This is a subject on which there is little recorded information to be found. Undoubtedly the background of English life, restrained by Calvinistic severity, was continued by the children and youth among the settlers. This must have been among the commonplaces of daily life and of so little importance to the future that no one considered it worthy of recording. It is impossible to think of child life without its natural outlet of sports and games – throw ball, football, running, swimming, etc., and we know that dolls and toys for children were for sale in the shops of Boston and Salem as early as 1651.
The Indians indulged in similar sports and played "hubbub," a game resembling dice, with much shouting of "hub, hub, hub," accompanied by slapping of breasts and thighs.
The innocent games of childhood may be taken for granted and their English origins may be studied in Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. It was gambling, and tavern amusements that the magistrates endeavored to control.
In 1646 complaints having been made to the General Court of disorders occasioned "by the use of Games of Shuffle-board and Bowling, in and about Houses of Common entertainment, whereby much precious time is spent unprofitably, and much waste of Wine and Beer occasioned"; the Court prohibited shuffle-board and bowling, "or any other Play or Game, in or about any such House" under penalty of twenty shillings for the Keeper of the house and five shillings for every person who "played at the said Game." As we now read this ancient law the waste of precious time and the undue amount of wine and beer consumed would seem to be the principal occasion for the anxiety of the Court, for the game of bowls is excellent exercise and innocent enough; shuffle-board, however, may well be looked upon with sour eyes. It required a highly polished board, or table, sometimes a floor thirty feet in length, marked with transverse lines, on which a coin or weight was driven by a blow with the hand. It bore some resemblance to tenpins, the object being to score points attained by sliding the coin to rest on or over a line at the farther end of the board. The game induced wagers and thereby a waste of substance and even in Old England was unlawful at various times, but difficult to suppress.
Massachusetts magistrates also enacted a law at the 1640 session, prohibiting any play or game for money or anything of value and forbade dancing in taverns upon any occasion, under penalty of five shillings for each offence. The observance of Christmas or any like day, "either by forbearing labor, feasting, or any other way" was also prohibited under penalty of five shillings for each person so offending. This action was occasioned by "disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such Festivals, as were superstitiously kept in other Countries, to the great dishonour of God and offence of others."
Strange as it may now seem, the non-observance of Christmas existed in orthodox communities, especially in the country towns, until well up to the time of the Civil War.
The magistrates having learned that it was a "custome too frequent in many places, to expend time in unlawful Games, as Cards, Dice, &c." at the same court decreed a fine of five shillings imposed on all so offending. Twenty-four years later the penalty was mightily increased to five pounds, one half to go to the Treasurer of the Colony and the other half to the informer. This was because of the increase of "the great sin of Gaming within this Jurisdiction, to the great dishonour of God, the corrupting of youth, and expending of much precious time and estate."40
All this legislation seems to have been directed against indulgence in gaiety and human weakness in and about a public tavern. What took place within the home was another matter although the orthodox Puritan continued to frown upon card playing and dancing until very recently. But cards and gambling were common at all times among the merchants and governing class as well as among the laborers and this was especially true in the seaport towns where sailors congregated and where there was more or less contact with the Southern colonies and with foreign lands. In 1720 playing cards cost a shilling a pack at James Lyndell's shop in Boston and a few years later David Gardiner was advertising Bibles, Prayer Books, account books, playing cards, and a great variety of other goods. Card tables appeared in inventories of estates, and were offered for sale by the cabinet makers.
At an early date horses became a prime article of trade with the West Indies, where they were used in the sugar cane crushing mills, and wherever horses are bred, questions of speed must naturally arise and therefore trials of speed and racing in the public eye.
This was a corrupting influence in the opinion of the Magistrates – "that variety of Horse racing, for money, or moneys worth, thereby occasing much misspence of precious time, and the drawing of many persons from the duty of their particular Callings, with the hazard of their Limbs and Lives." It therefore became unlawful "to practice in that Kind, within four miles of any Town, or in any Highway, the offenders, if caught, to pay twenty shillings each, the informer to receive one half."
But public opinion at a later date changed somewhat and here are a few items gleaned from Boston newspapers that demonstrate the fact that human nature two centuries ago was much the same as at the present time.
Horse Race. This is to give Notice that at Cambridge on Wednesday the 21st day of September next, will be Run for, a Twenty Pound Plate, by any Horse, Mare or Gelding not exceeding Fourteen and a half hands high, carrying 11 Stone Weight, and any Person or Persons shall be welcome to Run his Horse &c. entering the same with Mr. Pattoun at the Green Dragon in Boston, any of the six Days preceding the Day of Running, & paying Twenty Shillings Entrance. —Boston News-Letter, Aug. 22-29, 1715.
A horse race was advertised to take place at Rumley Marsh (Chelsea), on a £10 wager. —Boston News-Letter, Nov. 11-18, 1717.
Horse Race. On the 2d of June next at 4 in the afternoon, A Silver Punch Bowl Value Ten Pounds will be run for on Cambridge Heath, Three Miles by any Horse, Mare or Gelding 13 hands 3 inches High, none to exceed 14, carrying Nine Stone Weight, if any Horse is 14 hands high to carry Ten stone weight; The Horses that put in for the Plate are to Enter at the Post-Office in Boston on the 1st of June between the Hours of 8 & 12 in the morning, and pay down Twenty Shillings. The winning Horse to pay the charge of this Advertisement. —Boston News-Letter, May 15-22, 1721.
Pig Run. On the same day that the silver Punch Bowl is run for on Cambridge Common by horses, "There will be a Pig Run for by Boys, at 9 in the morning. The Boy who takes the Pig and fairly holds it by the Tail, wins the Prize." —Boston Gazette, May 22-29, 1721.
Horse Race. This is to give Notice to all Gentlemen and others, that there is to be Thirty Pounds in money Run for on Thursday the 13th of May next at 9 o'clock, by Six Horses, Mares, or Geldings, Two miles between Menotomy & Cambridge, to carry 9 Stone weight, the Standard to be 14 hands high, all exceeding to carry weight for inches. Each one that Runs to have their Number from 1 to 6, to be drawn, and to run by 2 together only as the Lots are drawn, the 3 first Horses to run a second heat, and the first of them to have the Money, allowing the 2d, 5£. if he saves his Distance, which shall be 100 yards from coming in.
Each Person to enter & pay 5£. to Mr. Philip Musgrave, Postmaster of Boston, 15 days before they Run. —Boston Gazette, Apr. 19-26, 1725.
Hog Race. On Monday, the 27th Instant between 2 & 3 a Clock in the afternoon, a Race will be run (for a considerable Wager) on the Plains at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, between a Hog and a Horse. —Boston Gazette, Aug. 30-Sept. 6, 1725.
We hear from New-Hampshire, that on Monday the 27th of Sept. last, there was a Race Run, for a considerable sum of money, between a Hog and a Horse, the former of which had the advantage most part of the way, which the party that were for the Horse, it is thought, caused the Hog to be frighten'd, so that with much ado the Horse got the advantage. —Boston Gazette, Sept. 27-Oct. 4, 1725.
Bear Baiting. On Thursday next the 2d of June, at 3 o'clock P.M., in Staniford's Street, near the Bowling Green, will be Baited a Bear, by John Coleson; where all Gentlemen and others that would divert themselves may repair. —Boston Gazette, May 23-30, 1726.
Horse Fair. This is to give Notice of a Horse Fair which is to be at Mr. John Brown's, Innholder at Hampton Falls, about seven miles to the Eastward of Newbury Ferry, upon the 20th and 21st days of April next; at which time 'tis expected that there will be brought thither some Hundreds of Horses, to be sold or otherwise traded for. —Boston News-Letter, Mar. 23-30, 1732.
For many years it was necessary for Massachusetts men to defend their families from marauding Indians and the French, and military trainings were held at regular intervals. In May, 1639, a thousand men took part at a training in Boston and in the fall of that year there were twelve hundred. Such occasions provided opportunity for feasting and drinking – perhaps we should say drunkenness – but as the years went by the prayers and singing of psalms gave way to days of public enjoyment and not infrequently to boisterous license. Governor Bradford wrote that the water of Plymouth was wholesome though not, of course, as wholesome as good beer and wine. Even so!
New England Puritans hated Christmas, a day for Popish revelry. On Christmas Day in 1621, those who had recently arrived at Plymouth in the ship Fortune entertained themselves with pitching the bar and playing stoolball, but at noon Governor Bradford appeared and ordered them to stop "gameing or revelling in the street."41 On Christmas Day, 1685, Judge Sewall wrote in his Diary, "Carts come to town and shops open as usual. Some somehow observe the day, but are vexed I believe that the Body of the People Prophane it, and blessed be God no authority yet to compel them to keep it."
Commencement Day at Harvard was also a day for diversion and vied in importance in the public eye with election day and training days.